So, another early, but slow day. After making breakfast, including an adventure in making coffee with one of those machines that are just pitchers with a plunger thing (wheee! So easy, why do we make coffee with machines when we can do that?), I headed off to revisit the Holocaust Memorial.
In itself, the memorial is amazing, its just acres and acres of these cement blocks, but its completely uneven and unaligned (it looks square, but it isn’t).
Then, I went underneath it, to the Information Center, which ended up being much much much more powerful than expected. It was very well done – historical time line, quotes, personal stories, biographies, everything. You know the whole thing about how we study history to avoid repeating the past? I really really think Germany cannot repeat the past with things like this memorial and information center right in the middle of Berlin. Its not just this, there are statues and memorials all over, it’s impressive.
Anyways, after a super-emotional morning, I then went to the Berlin Wall Memorial, which is this open-air walking place with lots of information. It was between the two walls that made up The Wall (der Mauer), in the “Death Zone”. It was really freaky to think about the fact that if I had been standing there at an earlier time, I would be shot (and killed) (plus, I wouldn’t be standing there, I’d be running as fast as I could…).
Ouf, too much heavy stuff. I then took the S-Bahn (subway, except not really, because that’s the U-Bahn) to Schöneberg, where I got to take a dance class in German! Nice and easy, but fun…and in German, I got most of it, though, which was exciting.
And now I’m back at the hostel. The Swiss roommates have been replaced by Australians (who are quite happily avoiding winter). They’re quite fun too, even if they speak English.
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